In the very first of her illness she had kept repeating, “Glad, so glad,” and they knew her gladness was because she was there. Then she forgot it, and now she took up the word “Gone,” and rang change after change upon it, till Kenneth wanted to stop his ears to shut out the sound. After a little her mood changed, and she talked of the time she came to the farmhouse a little girl and played with the cats and Chance.
“Where are they?” she asked, with something like consciousness, and Kenneth told her that only six cats now ate in the wooden trough, and that Chance died long ago and was buried in the inclosure where they had their Christmas tree.
“Oh, yes, the tree!” she exclaimed, going over it with every detail, calling her own name and Chance’s and Harry’s, and finally Kenneth, who had nothing but herself.
“The best gift of all,” Kenneth said, putting his cool hand on her hot forehead.
For a moment Connie looked at him with her great bright eyes, in which the tears slowly gathered.
“Brush them away,” she said. “I haven’t the strength.”
He brushed them away, stooping so close to her that he took her tainted breath, hot and fetid, but felt no fear. At last she began to talk again, and this time of the sled and the rides she had upon it, and of the prayers Kenneth had heard and the “Stir-up Collect” that he did not know.
“Do you know it now?” she asked, rather sharply.
Kenneth nodded, and she continued:
“Say it.”